is a student run intercollegiate organization dedicated to addressing issues pertinent to Asian/Pacific/Americans on local, national, and global scales.

How do they translate into issues that affect the Asian/Pacific/American (A/P/A) community? How do they build Asian/ Pacific/ American as a political identity?

Your personal stories and histories fuel this conversation.

Every April, we open a safe space

for you to critically engage in these conversations.

With interactive workshops and local and nationally based speakers and performers, the conference is structured to inspire initiative, empowerment, and solidarity among attendees.

NYCAASC is now entering its 9th successful year.

NYCAASC is a free grassroots conference planned entirely by university students all around New York City. It will continue to build student power and push the boundaries of the term Asian/Pacific/American to reflect and celebrate the rich, diverse heritages, experiences, and activism we hail from.

This year's conference is themed

2014 was not a landmark year in America’s long history of human rights violations, but it was significant in the refusal of bodies to stand back in the face of injustice. “BLACK LIVES MATTER!” was yelled into the night air, as the list of murdered names grew every day, connected by their perceived social identities--of race, gender, sex, and sexuality, etc-- ultimately, in difference: a difference marked onto the body and fraught with meaning.

For this reason, this year’s conference is themed, “Critical Mass: Collective Bodies for Action.” In protest, a mass of bodies becomes a powerful organism, one that breathes, marches, and moves in time together. The goal of this year’s conference is for the Asian/Pacific/American community to reach that critical mass: a point of large scale rupture, but also of creation. A/P/A communities must break away from the position of silence or affirmation they have been confined to and respond to these calls for action.

This year’s conference will push attendees to examine how difference is constructed and imposed onto our bodies. It will look at how bodies are policed in certain contexts-- from racialized stereotypes to beauty standards, gender norms, and immigration policy-- but even more importantly, it will expand the limits of what a body can do. How will our marked bodies become actors of change and builders of a more just society? Like our activist predecessors, we want to inspire our attendees to create positive change and to add their necessary voices to the singular rallying cry.

As activists, artists, and scholars, our former keynote speakers have inspired attendees by sharing how they have contributed to and seen the A/P/A movement grow and assert its presence.

..while also featuring incredible, fresh talent.

Every year, we showcase a diverse set of local talent and interactive projects.

From music, comedy, and spoken word,

We have hosted national talent, including MC Jin, the first Asian American to be signed to a major rap label, the always hilarious Hari Kondabolu, YouTube singer Joseph Vincent, local talent like Bea Go, and fire-spitting spoken word artists— Regie Cabico, Beau Sia, and Kelly Tsai.

to collaborative art installations,

In last year's ROOTS Conference, participants were given a tag to write about their self-defined ROOTS, as well as their wishes for future growth. The tags were then hung up on a tree created by artist and NYU Tisch student, Mars Marson.

and projects that will not take your racist, sexist, (insert)-ist sh*t!

In 2013, NYCAASC showcased NYU A/P/A BRIDGE's photo project about reactions to microaggressions and invited attendees to contribute photos of their own.

Registration is now open!

We have provided free resources for education, empowerment, and action in the local A/P/A community for almost a decade. We would like to continue this tradition by inviting thoughtful, engaged individuals like yourselves to attend and critically reflect in our space.